


Secrets

by SeaWitch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 06:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9308855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaWitch/pseuds/SeaWitch
Summary: Everybody has them.





	

Tell me a secret.  
  
You've taken them all, there aren't any more.

He turns his attention back to the papers in front of him, she always chooses to pester him when he has work to do. That he allows a ghost to question him, goes to her as a penitent to confessor, at turns amuses and sickens him, but he does.  
  
Tell me a secret.  
  
I have none left.  
  
You have one more. You can have my secret in trade for it.  
  
Dead girls don't have secrets.  
  
She laughs.  
  
I have a secret.  
  
I find that hard to believe. You were never one for dissembling.  
  
Just because I can't lie convincingly doesn't mean I don't have secrets. Tell me your last secret and I'll tell you mine.  
  
You won't leave until I tell you.  
  
I won't. I'll keep asking until you tell me. You know that.  
  
An exasperated sound.  
  
It's not much of a secret, compared to the others.  
  
Those were things you did. She pauses. This last secret is about you, about what goes unsaid.  
  
I've always been in love with Lily Evans.  
  
True. But that's not the secret you're keeping.  
  
He glares at her.  
  
Of course it is.  
  
It isn't.  
  
Don't be a fool.  
  
It isn't your last secret, but it's bound up with it.  
  
He knows then that somehow, somehow despite being only the shadow, the idea of the girl left behind … that she knows. Knows what he thinks about, knows what creeps in around the edges of his passion for a long-dead woman. Knows what alternately burns and freezes him even now, as it did while she still had breath.  
  
I started to feel for you.  
  
She nods. Gracious. And he wonders how it's possible that she seems to have matured. Ghosts don't age.  
  
She drifts close, passes through the edge of the desk and waits beside him.  
  
Do you want my secret? You won't like it.  
  
Tell me.  
  
She leans close, chill almost-breath against his ear and cheek.  
  
I'm not dead. You are.  
  
I'm not.  
  
You are.  
  
I'm alive. I'm marking papers. I teach classes. I bicker with Minerva over the scones at afternoon tea. I tell you my secrets.  
  
You're dead. And the papers are all mine.  
  
He stills, dread rising.  
  
At the edges of his vision, the walls of the dungeon flutter and shred. She solidifies, colour blooming through her, illuminating the lines on her face, the depth in her eyes. Older than eighteen, younger than thirty. Proves her secret not to be a complete lie.  
  
I'm dead?  
  
Ten years.  
  
What am I?  
  
An echo from a wand.   
  
The walls melt away, nothing but a silver emptiness around them.  
  
That's impossible.  
  
Improbable, rather.  
  
Explain.  
  
I'm tired of exposition, she says, and he knows then that she's grown up. The girl she was, the ghost she should be, would not pass up the chance to talk about her own cleverness.  
  
How?  
  
She sighs.  
  
It shouldn't have worked. It didn't when I tried it on other wands. Just yours. I posited the reason, and you just confirmed it.  
  
Emotional attachment.  
  
So it seems.  
  
One way or both?  
  
She doesn't answer, and in the slide of her eyes from his, he finds his answer. Both.  
  
Where am I? A Pensieve?  
  
Something similar, yes.  
  
I'm stuck here.  
  
Yes.   
  
Release me.  
  
No.  
  
Release me.  
  
I don’t want to.  
  
Release me.  
  
If I do, you’ll be gone entirely.  
  
There’s no portrait of me to irritate?  
  
Not yet.  
  
It stings, but it is no more than he expects.  
  
Yet?  
  
Harry’s getting insistent. She shrugs. Would you believe he named his youngest after you and Albus?  
  
He stares at her.  
  
Horrible thing to do to a child.  
  
She laughs again.  
  
You married Weasley, didn’t you.  
  
Her laughter stops dead.  
  
Yes.  
  
Children?  
  
Two.  
  
He shakes his head.  
  
It is what it is. I have two happy, healthy children.  
  
Then you have no need of me. Release me.  
  
No.  
  
You’re just going to keep me here?  
  
Yes.  
  
He can’t help but be appalled.  
  
I could take myself out of existence.  
  
You could, she says, but do you really want to?  
  
And he can’t answer as she steps close and rests her hand on his cheek. Because, despite the fact that he knows this isn’t real, that he isn’t real any more, he can feel the heat of her skin, feel her breath and he thinks this is probably better than what awaits him on the other side.  
  
No.

**Author's Note:**

> First uploaded to OWL these long ages past, where I wrote under the name indigofeathers - so don't worry, not stealing another author's words, just playing in JKR's backyard and putting her characters through the wringer.


End file.
